According to a press release out overnight, The City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has been given £3 million in funding to ensure its existence to at least 2017.

The IP Crime Group report 2013/2014 notes PIPCU has already investigated more than £29 million worth of IP crime and has suspended 2,359 domain names.

IPCU was also involved in the review of Nominet’s domain registration policy.

“PIPCU uses several methods to address intellectual property crime including some new tools and techniques. These include deregistering domain names, the removal of payment services from sites selling, counterfeit/infringing products, working with advertising companies to reduce advertising as a revenue source on such sites, and court blocking orders against Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and mainstream criminal prosecutions.”

PIPCU was set-up in September 2013 and is now a 21-person team consisting of detectives, police staff investigators, analysts, researchers, an education officer and a communications officer. The unit also has the added skills and expertise from two secondees; a Senior Intelligence Officer from the UK IPO and an Internet Investigator from the British Recorded Music Industry (BPI).

The Government committing to fund the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit until 2017 is fantastic news for the City of London Police and the creative industries and very bad news for those that seek to make capital through intellectual property crime,” said City of London Police Commander Steve Head, who is the Police National Coordinator for Economic Crime.

“Since launching a year ago PIPCU has quickly established itself as an integral part of the national response to a problem that is costing the UK more than a billion pounds a year. Much of this success is down to PIPCU moving away from traditional policing methods and embracing new and innovative tactics, to disrupt and dismantle criminal networks responsible for causing huge damages to legitimate businesses.

“PIPCU has benefitted immensely from forging a close alliance with the IPO; forming partnerships with national and international law enforcement bodies, the creative industries and the public and private sector. This puts the unit and the City of London Police as a whole in a strong position to make an even bigger impact and greater inroads into intellectual property crime over the next couple of years.”

Baroness Neville-Rolfe commented that PIPCU’s continued operation will help in the fight against IP crime, which costs the UK economy £ 1.3 billion a year in lost profits and taxes.

“We’ve seen significant success in PIPCU’s first year of operation. This extra support for the unit will help them to build on this impressive record in the fight against intellectual property crime, which costs the UK at least £ 1.3 billion a year in lost profits and taxes”

“With more money now being invested in ideas than factories or machinery in the UK, it is vital that we protect creators and consumers and the UK’s economic growth. Government and industry must work together to give long-term support to PIPCU, so that we can strengthen the UK’s response to the blight of piracy and counterfeiters.”

The IP Crime Group report 2013/2014 is available for download from:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/361045/ipcreport13.pdf